A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains or may contain material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the photocopy reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure in exactly the form it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates in general to a gaming device, and more particularly to a gaming device having an offer and acceptance game with a termination limit.
Gaming devices, such as slot, poker, blackjack and keno, having primary and/or secondary or bonus games are well known. One well known game provides a player with a series of offers, where each offer includes a number of credits, coins, tokens or dollars. The player may accept or reject each offer prior to the final offer. The player must accept the final offer. If the player accepts an offer, the game provides the offer to the player. If the player rejects an offer, the gaming device provides another offer to the player, as long as the current offer is not the final offer.
The offers are randomly determined from a series of potential offers of differing values. As illustrated in FIG. 3, the potential offers 100 are displayed to the player (hereafter xe2x80x9coffersxe2x80x9d 100), each offer provided by the game is displayed in a current offer display 102, the number of offers remaining are displayed in an offers remaining display 104, and accept and reject input devices 106 and 108, respectively, enable the user to accept or reject the offers.
Several different embodiments of this type of game for a gaming device have been implemented in gaming machines of various types. This type of gaming device has achieved significant popularity in the gaming industry. Accordingly, there is a need for new gaming devices related to this type of offer and acceptance game.
The gaming device of the present invention includes a plurality of player selectable selections, steps towards termination of the bonus game associated with each of the selections, a termination limit of the steps, and an offer associated with each number of steps toward termination. The steps towards the termination limit accompany, are associated with or determine the offers that the game provides to the player. The game provides no further offers when the player""s selection makes the accumulated steps exceed the termination limit. The game preferably provides a consolation award to the player when the player""s steps exceed the termination limit. Alternatively, these game functions occur when the player""s accumulated steps meet the termination limit.
In one embodiment, the game provides a plurality of player selectable masked selections. Each selection functions as a rejection of the current offer after the first offer is made. Therefore, these selections function as a plurality of offer rejections. The game may alternatively provide only one reject offer input device, whereby the player selects or the game randomly selects or provides a new offer. As the player sequentially rejects offers, the steps associated with the offers accumulate or accrue. If the accumulated steps meet or alternatively exceed a preset termination limit, the gaming device revokes all offers and ends the game as described above.
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a display device, processor adapted to communicate with said display device and to accrue a plurality of steps, a step generator adapted to communicate with the processor, a plurality of offers associated with the accrued steps, a termination limit including a plurality of accrued steps, at least one offer acceptance indicator adapted to communicate with the processor and at least one offer rejection indicator adapted to communicate with the processor. In this embodiment, the step generator is adapted to generate the steps, the processor is adapted to accrue the steps and the display device is adapted to display the steps and offers until the accrued steps exceed the termination limit, a player uses the offer rejection indicator to reject all the offers associated with the accrued steps or the player uses the offer acceptance indicator to accept an offer associated with the accrued steps.
A method for operating the gaming device of the present invention includes the steps of: (i) providing a number of steps and an offer associated with the player""s accumulated steps to the player; (ii) enabling the player to accept or reject the provided offer; (iii) ending the game if the player""s steps towards termination meet or alternatively exceed the termination limit; and (iv) enabling the player to select a new offer if the player""s steps towards termination do not meet or alternatively exceed the termination limit. The termination limit functions as a limit to the number of new offers (i.e., a maximum number of offers) that the player may obtain. Accordingly, in each game, the number of potential offers may vary and in other embodiments, it may be fixed. The game includes additionally providing a maximum offer amount, which when reached, terminates the game. In one embodiment, the termination limit is fixed. In another, the game provides different termination limits at different times.
The game preferably terminates when the player reaches the maximum number of possible offers, the maximum offer amount, or rejects too many offers such that the player""s accrued steps towards termination which determine the offers made to the player exceed the termination limit. The player is thus forced to predict when the next offer, which may or may not be larger than the previous offer, will have an associated number of steps to cause termination of the game and must thereby decide when to accept the current offer. If the player accepts the current offer, the game awards the offer to the player.
The game also preferably provides a non-instantaneous or delayed reveal which adds excitement and enjoyment to the game. When the player rejects an offer, the game displays the steps accruing one at a time on an indicator in accordance with the theme of the game. The player does not know when or where the accrual will stop. The player hopes the indicator will designate a valuable offer and also hopes the indicator does not accrue steps that meet or alternatively exceed the termination limit. The improved delayed or non-instantaneous reveal provides more excitement and enjoyment than simply instantaneously revealing the accrued number of steps.
It is therefore an advantage of the present invention to provide a gaming device with an offer and acceptance bonus game wherein the game enables the player to obtain offers until the player accepts an offer, meets or exceeds a termination limit or runs out of offers.
It is another advantage of the present invention to provide a gaming device which non-instantaneously reveals outcomes to increase enjoyment and excitement.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein like numerals refer to like parts, elements, components, steps and processes.